Protector S.o.s.. Susan Kearney

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СКАЧАТЬ Sandy had considered him too restrictive and over-the-top protective. She’d once told him that if he could have, he’d never have let Ellie out of the house, never mind on a date. But Ellie had enjoyed pushing him to the wall, dating bikers, surfers and all-around misfits. At first he’d been pleased when Sandy had taken Ellie under her wing, but then he’d realized Sandy had been encouraging his sister’s rebelliousness. After numerous heated arguments, he and Sandy had split up—but the girls had become fast friends.

      Travis had been none too pleased when Ellie and Sandy joined forces in business. He didn’t like the idea of his sister gallivanting all over the ocean with only one other woman. They were vulnerable, and obviously something bad had happened or Sandy wouldn’t have called him.

      “Come on.” Sandy led him through the office door onto the dock. “I’m in critical need of a top-notch mechanic.”

      “What—”

      “Give me a second.” She squeezed his hand so tight, the bones creaked. “The boat’s over here. The motor’s on the fritz.”

      “You want to clarify?”

      Sandy tugged the sunglasses from her forehead down over her eyes. “She’s overheating when kept below two knots. The owner has out-of-town guests and is impatient to take her out tomorrow.” Travis didn’t give a damn. He wanted to know about Ellie. But he held his tongue, grabbed a toolbox from the shed and acted as if he intended to fix the motor as Sandy led him to a day-sailer with an outboard on its transom.

      He half expected Sandy to tell him that Ellie had hooked up with some guy with a record. Or some loner who lived on a houseboat, collected disability checks and drank away his benefits. Ellie had always had a soft spot for those who were down and out. And she never thought of the danger she might be placing herself in. Every time Travis had tried to talk with her, she’d told him off.

      So he’d taught her to fight dirty. But she’d refused to learn to shoot a weapon or keep one aboard. Sandy hadn’t been any more reasonable. Both of them seemed to believe that they were impervious to trouble. But Travis had always known that two women alone at sea were targets. It was amazing they’d gotten along just fine on their own—although he had no doubts that Ellie filtered what she told him about her adventures. There was no telling how many close calls they’d had, how many scrapes they’d been in that he didn’t know about.

      Since the two women listened to nothing he said, perhaps his ignorance was bliss. It had certainly been less stressful—until now.

      Travis stepped aboard and headed for the engine. He checked the fuel first. The tank was full. He yanked the power cord once and wasn’t all that surprised when the motor fired right up. There was no extra smoke, no sign of the overheating she’d mentioned. In fact, the only thing close to overheating was his temper.

      Travis didn’t want to tell Sandy, “I told you so.” He wanted to know that his sister was safe, that Sandy had brought him here for no reason other than to irritate him. But the knot in his gut told him otherwise. So did the tension in Sandy’s jaw, where a muscle ticked. He’d never seen her wound so tight.

      With her laid-back attitude, Sandy usually looked at life through mellow-toned glasses. But her live-and-let-live philosophy seemed to apply to everyone but Travis. According to Sandy, years ago, he could do nothing right. He knew nothing about women, nothing about teenage girls and nothing about parenting.

      What made their fights so tempestuous was that Sandy had been partially right. But what twenty-two-year-old dude was ready to take on raising a rebellious teenage sister and have a serious relationship? Travis had done his best. And he couldn’t have screwed up too badly with Ellie because she had turned out just fine. She didn’t do drugs. She didn’t drink too much. And she had good friends. If she went too easily from one man to the next, Travis didn’t see what he could do about it. Ellie was a grown woman, but obviously she’d tangled with something bad enough for Sandy to break her silent treatment of Travis and call him.

      He wanted an explanation, but Sandy left him to man the tiller while she cast off the lines. Amid gulls squawking, and other boaters waving as they passed by, they cruised out of the protected harbor. Travis kept one eye on the temperature gauge and saw no sign of a malfunction.

      Sandy returned to the cockpit and sat next to him, crossing her long, tanned legs. “Sorry for the dramatics. I’m pretty sure that my office and phones are bugged.”

      Travis frowned, pulled the tiller to his body and motored around a channel marker. “Where’s Ellie?”

      “Our last client kidnapped her.”

      “What?” Travis didn’t hold back several four-letter words. His temper, already on a short fuse, lit up. It worried him that Sandy didn’t even bother to shout back—a sure sign of serious trouble.

      “At least pretend to fiddle with the engine, and I’ll tell you everything.” While he removed the engine’s hood, Sandy’s eyes brimmed with tears and she wiped them off her cheeks. He’d never seen her cry, and his gut churned with fear. “We’d been paid by Danzler to deliver a boat to a private island off Nova Scotia owned by a Martin Vanderpelt. When we got there, Vanderpelt examined the boat, discovered it wasn’t the exact one he’d ordered and went ballistic.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “His boat had been struck by lightning. Danzler had a duplicate hull on hand and filled his order. But Vanderpelt insisted we return for the original damaged hull and made us take his associate, Alan Lavelle, with us.”

      “You took on a passenger?”

      “He pulled a gun on us.”

      “Go on.” Travis forced himself to appear outwardly calm, but inside he tensed up with fear for Ellie. Taking out a wrench from the toolbox, he pretended to use it, his concerns for Ellie escalating with every word Sandy spoke. The defeat lacing her words scared him as much as her story.

      “So the three of us sailed back to Danzler Marine only to learn Vanderpelt’s original boat had been stolen. We decided to return home to wait for Danzler, the insurance company and the police to find the boat, or decide what to do next. That’s when Alan grabbed Ellie and forced her into a motorboat that came alongside us. He told me that when I found Vanderpelt’s boat and brought it to the island, he’d release Ellie.”

      “Why didn’t you call the cops?”

      “He said I’d be watched. And that if I went to the authorities, Ellie would suffer consequences.” Sandy met his eyes, her own still teary. “I called you from a pay phone, but was afraid to answer your calls. They are watching me. I don’t know who or where or how, but I’ve heard clicks on my phone, and there are people hanging around the marina that I’ve never seen before.”

      Travis forced himself into professional mode. He couldn’t allow his fears to overwhelm him if he was going to help his sister. “When did they take Ellie?”

      “Yesterday afternoon.”

      “What kind of boat was it?”

      “A Grady-White with double Mercury engines. The first five numbers of the serial are 47583.”

      “You did good.” He tossed the wrench back into the toolbox. “What can you tell me about Alan Lavelle?”

      “Not much. He was medium height, medium build. СКАЧАТЬ